There's always time for a book - Seven happy things from my week

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1. Last bank holiday Monday we visited Anglesey Abbey, which is an old country house near Cambridge. It’s a lovely building with great gardens and, bizarrely, what I reckon must be the world’s largest collection of paintings of Windsor Castle. Not only were there paintings from last 400 years of the castle, but even ones of random rural scenes with titles like “near Windsor Castle”.
2. The weather this week has been lovely. It’s been sunny and even warm! Granted, I’m still carrying a light jacket around with me but I wore a skirt with BARE LEGS this week!
3. I have finished up a few projects at work and am actually anticipating a time where I am not just frantically doing urgent stuff but also catching up on longer term projects.
4. I had a lovely looong chat with one of my sisters yesterday and feel caught up on the family goss.
5. Everything is growing really fast. You turn around and there are new leaves on a tree and nettles climbing over the path. And poppies have started coming out next to the roads!
6. Yesterday we saw a water shrew! I’d heard there was one hanging around a pond in a local reserve and yesterday evening we spotted it swimming around.
7. And talk about saving the best for last, today we went to visit the house that the children’s books of Green Knowe was based on! The manor at Hemingford Grey is one of Britain’s oldest continuously inhabited houses so it was interesting beyond the connections to the books. Seeing as I re-read Children of Green Knowe before this visit I think a separate post is in order!

More lists up as usual at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast!

Tags: happiness list

	From: emerald_happy	Date: May 11th, 2008 07:23 pm (UTC)		(Link)

2. ME TOO! EVERY DAY THIS WEEK! XD plus there are always stripy socks!
6. awwwww

glad everything's going well.

	From: emmaco	Date: May 12th, 2008 06:27 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Glad to hear you're enjoying the warm weather too :)

	From: checkers65477	Date: May 11th, 2008 09:19 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Isn't spring wonderful? It seems like you could almost see the leaves grow if you watched them long enough. Suddenly no more bare branches.

I haven't read the Green Knowe books! I just read about the manor on Wikipedia and it sounds pretty incredible.

The "family goss"? Short for gossip?

	From: emmaco	Date: May 12th, 2008 06:29 pm (UTC)		(Link)

The Green Knowe books are fantastic, but I'm not sure if they're the sort of books you adore more if you read them as a child first. Perhaps you could try Children of Green Knowe (post forthcoming!) and let me know :)

Didn't realise goss wasn't a common term, but yeah, it's short for gossip :) I have lots of aunts and cousins etc so catching up takes a while!

From: tanaudel.wordpress.com	Date: May 12th, 2008 01:12 am (UTC)		(Link)

Poppies! Shrews! It sounds like Enid Blyton.

	From: emmaco	Date: May 12th, 2008 06:30 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I know! I think I could make a blog about living here and call it Walking though my childhood!

	From: splanky	Date: May 12th, 2008 07:06 am (UTC)		(Link)

Isn't the manor marvelous? I also visited there during my time in England, and it's so exciting to see the actual things in the books. The house wasn't like what I'd pictured it as, even with the illustrations. I will have to go back and read them again sometime soon.

	From: emmaco	Date: May 12th, 2008 06:31 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Ah, I thought someone on the DWJ list was the person who had visited the Manor a while back. Before that, I never knew that you could visit the house! So thank-you :)

I'm still sorting out my thoughts, but some of the house was like a pictured but most of it not. But that's because the house in my head is even more extraordinary :)

Edited at 2008-05-12 06:32 pm (UTC)

	From: splanky	Date: May 13th, 2008 03:18 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I found out about it years ago when I used to read rec.arts.books.childrens. As soon as I realised it was a real place and open to the public visiting it became one of the things I just had to do! It all just fell into place. Soneone else from the list visited it shortly before I did and was able to tell me where to find the information. It was not far from my sister's in-laws, who I was staying with. In fact, it was in the village where they used to live! Not that that helped us find a place to park, or anything like that!

I am very glad I inspired another Green Knowe fan to go there!

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